


Ruby Counts

by dear_tiger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_tiger/pseuds/dear_tiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For cassiopeia7. Ruby has an uncomfortable realization while counting hairs on a cat's tail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruby Counts

**Author's Note:**

> I once heard that there's a belief in the Philippines that nightmares happen because the Devil is bothering you, but a cat will make him count hairs on its tail when he comes, and until he's done, he can't touch you. But when the Devil is almost finished, the cat flicks its tail. The Devil loses count and has to start all over again.

_Three hundred and three, three hundred and four, three hundred and five…_

Ruby sighed and kept going, finger ticking off the count gently in the air. She stuck her tongue out, out of an old habit left over from the days in school that she went to as a young girl, before the plague came and there were no more lessons. Shit, she had hated those lessons. She remembered her counting sticks, and how she had struggled with them. Counting sticks were nothing compared to this.

_Three hundred and twenty nine, three hundred and thirty…_

Ruby didn’t learn to count to a hundred until after she died and went to Hell. She forgot about that. Huh.

She got to the end of a black strip on the cat’s tail, where she had promised herself a tiny break. She glanced up. The grey tabby cat was staring back at her in that creepy manner all cats have. Its eyes were huge, blazing in the dark room. Ruby shook her finger at it. It blinked but remained immobile where it was sleeping at the foot of Sam’s bed. Ruby bared her teeth, not thinking it’d do much but just to make a statement, and went back to counting the tail hairs.

See, when it comes to demon lore, there’s a shit tone of rumors out there that the professionals discount. Some of it truly is bullshit, and some, well, not so much. Burning the bones kills the demon, true. Putting a pair of cucumbers together in a shape of a cross makes a demon vomit pea soup, not so much. Ruby chuckled to herself, thinking of that last one. She’d had a pair of cucumbers wielded at her. Cats make a demon count hairs on their tails and thus protect a sleeping human – unfortunately, that one was true. As much as Ruby hated it, and she hated it plenty. 

_Three hundred and seventy seven, three hundred and seventy eight, fuck this, how much hair does this thing have, three hundred and seventy nine…_

This cat was a stray. For the past few days, it’d been sneaking into the abandoned shack that Sam stayed in out of paranoia, masochism and anti-social tendencies. Sam and his love of animals. Ruby flicked her gaze up briefly, not to lose her spot, and caught sight of Sam’s ankle poking out from under the covers. He’d been feeding this cat tuna from a can, and now it decided to sleep on his bed. And it had to do that on the night that Ruby really needed to talk to Sam. Only, whoops, can’t do that, can’t make a sound or touch him, not until you’ve counted all the tail hairs.

And the best part was, if Sam woke up, Ruby was going to have to duck under the bed. Because Sam was smart and read too much, and he could probably figure out the cat thing. No can do.

_Four hundred. Motherfucker. Four hundred and one._ The cat blinked. Ruby counted and ticked off the count with a tip of her finger in the air. _Four hundred and eleven._

Sam farted in his sleep. 

Ruby froze and held very still for a moment, not looking at him. Gotta stay focused at a task like that. Carefully, she finished counting to the end of the grey stripe, and then she let it all go. She flailed her arms and tore at her hair, beat her fists in the air over the mattress and screamed and screamed, without making a sound. The cat eyed her, suspicious. Ruby tore out some of her own hair and did a little pantomime of strangling Sam, to make her feel better. It helped, somewhat. She took a deep breath – a goddamn _mistake_ – and went back to counting. 

She got to five hundred.

Sam had a nice ankle. Ruby could see it in the corner of her eye, his skin licked by moonlight. He had nice toes for a man, long and strong and nicely-shaped. She followed his leg up to the knee, looked at the thigh covered by the blanket, the hip, the outline of his torso, all the way to his shoulder. He slept on his stomach, one knee bent and both arms hidden under the pillow. Who knew how he could even breathe, with his face smashed into the pillow. Ruby smiled at the stupid face he was making, at what she could see of it. Sam was like a puppy, spirit too large for the body, so much power and so much potential. He was like the most special puppy in the world, and he was all hers. Well, he would be, once she was done counting the hairs. She could get him to lick her neck these days. Maybe, when he grew into his powers, he’d remember.

_Five hundred and sixty four, five hundred and sixty five. Keep your eyes on the prize. Five hundred and what? Sixty six._

The first boy Ruby ever loved had hair the color of rye. She used to think that as she watched him through the hole in her mother’s fence, while he chased a barrel hoop or chickens down the street. The color of rye. It sounded so beautiful to a skinny, dirty girl with counting sticks in one pocket and graveyard dirt in the other. What the fuck was even his name? Bartholomew, she thought. Yes, that was it. Bartholomew, with the hair the color of rye. Ruby had made a barley stew that summer and put a few drops of her menstrual blood in it, to make him love her. He did too. 

_I should do that to you,_ Ruby mouthed at the dip in Sam’s spine. She didn’t dare to look up too high and lose her count on the god-forsaken creature’s tail. Only, she didn’t bleed anymore, only the body she moved into did. She’d do it, bind him to her that much stronger, so that he’d do what she said and think only of her. Her, her, her, and not Dean. Oh, Dean, what a clusterfuck. Another thing that was so cool about Sam was how he’d have this love-you-want-you-so-much-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-you sort of feeling for his brother, of all people. How cool was that? How wonderfully twisted.

_Five hundred and ninety eight, five hundred and ninety nine._ Ruby paused and pumped her fist in the air. _Six hundred! Only a gazillion more to go._ The cat just kept staring.

Ruby ticked off another three dozens, before realization came like a ton of bricks. She froze. Was she seriously just considering Sam Winchester and love in the same train of thoughts? Did she just? Ruby bugged her eyes out at the cat. Sam. The man she had seen stinking drunk and in tears. The man who had the power of a sizable nuclear reactor in him but refused to use it. Sam, who fed stray animals, like a maiden auntie. The man who farted in her face not five minutes ago, for fuck’s sake.

_Thump-thump, thump-thump,_ went the stupid borrowed heart, now hers, so loud in the borrowed chest. Ruby picked up a small strand of her hair and chewed on the ends – another habit from a long time ago. Sam. There were no words for the monumental stupidity of this.

Ruby looked down at the tabby, which looked back. _Listen,_ she mouthed at it, _listen, I’m having a shitty night already. Can you just go chase some mice somewhere? Go on, shoo. Shoo._ She made pitiful eyes at the cat, which kept staring. _I’m pretty sure I just fell in love with the biggest, dumbest puppy in the world. Have mercy._

The cat flicked its tail, and Ruby lost her count.


End file.
